Simon the Magician and the Death of the Priesthood of All Believers
Acts 8 contains a test case for Protestant authority theology — and the test fails on the very first attempt.
The Doctrine: What Protestants Claim
The Reformation’s most consequential novelty was not justification by faith alone. It was the priesthood of all believers. The doctrine rests on 1 Peter 2:9: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” Luther seized this verse and drove a stake through the medieval clergy. Every baptized believer, he argued, is a priest before God. No bishop, no pope, no ordained intermediary required. The verse says “royal priesthood” — therefore every believer has full priestly standing.
The doctrine is convenient. It dissolves every claim to institutional authority. It justifies every individual reading the Bible and deciding for himself. And it explains the fragmentation that followed: distinct Protestant families — Lutheran, Reformed and Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and a few dozen others, divided across hundreds of distinct traditions — each claiming equal legitimacy, because by this logic none can be more authoritative than another. (The inflated count of tens of thousands of “denominations” sometimes cited here is a per-country tally that lumps in Catholics, Orthodox, and others; the World Christian Encyclopedia’s own mid-level taxonomy is closer to 300 major ecclesiastical traditions — see this breakdown of the figure.)
But ask the question Protestants never want to answer: if every baptized believer has full priestly authority, then why couldn’t Simon?
Simon the Test Case: Acts 8
Acts 8 does not merely suggest that priestly authority is limited — it states it plainly. Read it carefully.
“But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria… And when Simon saw that through laying on of hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money: Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.”
Simon had believed the preaching of Philip. Simon had been baptized. By every Protestant criterion for membership in the “royal priesthood,” Simon qualified. He was a believing, baptized Christian. And yet when he attempted to exercise the authority to confer the Holy Ghost, Peter’s verdict was absolute: “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter.”
Notice what Peter did not say. He did not say Simon lacked authority because his motives were wrong. He said Simon had “neither part nor lot” in the matter — meaning the authority itself was never his. Simon’s attempt to purchase it revealed he understood exactly what he lacked: something the apostles had that he did not.
The Protestant answer to this is that Simon’s heart wasn’t right — that his faith was insincere. But the text does not say that. The text says Simon saw the miracle, believed, and was baptized. The distinction the text draws is not between sincere and insincere faith. It is between those who have authority to confer the Holy Ghost and those who do not. Simon did not have it. The apostles did. That distinction is the entire point of the passage.
Acts 19: The Sons of Sceva
In case Acts 8 is not enough, Acts 19 repeats the lesson with greater drama. Seven sons of Sceva — Jewish exorcists — attempted to invoke the name of Jesus over those with evil spirits. They were not hypocrites. They used the formula Paul used. They named the right name.
“And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”
The evil spirit recognized the difference between authorized and unauthorized use of Christ’s name. “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” The spirit did not ask whether they believed. It asked about their standing. Their belief was irrelevant. Their authority was not.
The same principle destroyed the sons of Sceva that failed Simon. You can know the right name. You can perform the right ordinance. You can have sincere intent. Without proper authority, none of it holds.
What 1 Peter 2:9 Actually Means
The Reformation built its most consequential doctrine on a misread verse. Turn back to the source: Exodus 19:5–6. God spoke to Israel at Sinai: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people… and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”
Peter is quoting Exodus directly. He is applying to the early church the same corporate, national identity God gave to Israel. The “royal priesthood” is a statement about the collective mission of the covenant people — to be a kingdom that mediates God’s presence to the nations of the earth. It is Israel’s priestly role before the world writ large onto the church.
It is not — and has never been — a statement about individual sacramental authority. It says nothing about who can ordain, who can confer the Holy Ghost, who can act in Christ’s name for binding ordinances. The Reformation applied a verse about corporate identity to individual sacerdotal autonomy. That application is exegetically unsupportable.
Hebrews 5:4 settles the matter: “And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” Aaron was called. His sons were called. The Levitical line was called. The authority was specific, named, and conferred — not assumed by anyone who believed. The New Testament priesthood operates on the same principle.
A group of individuals who by their study of the scriptures claim to have authority is not authority. The question is not whether you believe you are called. The question is: who called you, and by what right did they do so?
Verdict
The priesthood of all believers fails Acts 8. Simon believed and was baptized — and Peter told him he had neither part nor lot in the authority to confer the Holy Ghost. It fails Acts 19. The sons of Sceva used the right name and the evil spirit beat them bloody because they had no standing. It fails Hebrews 5:4. No man takes this honor to himself.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that authority in Christ’s name requires proper ordination through a line traceable to Him. That line was broken by apostasy. It was restored through Joseph Smith. The Restoration did not invent a new doctrine of priesthood authority — it recovered the one the New Testament plainly teaches and Protestantism plainly abandoned.
The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is a convenient invention that answers the wrong question. It asks: “Who is a priest before God?” and answers: everyone who believes. The New Testament asks a different question: “Who has the authority to act in Christ’s name for binding ordinances?” and answers: only those He calls and ordains.
Simon found out the hard way. The sons of Sceva found out the hard way. The Reformation has been finding out for five hundred years.